Starry Night over the Rhone is a painting by Vincent van Gogh, executed in late September 1888. The painting shows Arles at night, the city where van Gogh lived at that time. The artist was fascinated of painting at night and the theme of lightning effects and the nightly sky is also to be found in several other paintings by van Gogh. The most famous one is without doubt Starry Night.
In a letter to his sister, Wilhelmina van Gogh wrote that the night seemed to him often „more colored than the day”. While some stars appear lemon or fire pink, others were rather green or bluish. To van Gogh it was clear that painting a starry night is much more than just ptting some white dots on black bleu.
The painting was first exhibited in 1889 at the annual exhibition of Société des Artistes Indépendants in Paris, together with his painting Irises, submitted by his brother Theo. Currently the painting is to be seen at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.
